The American Spectator

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The absurd sugar subsidies in the bill will add billions of dollars to consumer costs each year. The continued ethanol subsidies (of several varieties) will continue exacerbating the global food shortage while actually harming the environment. The special-interest pork and tax breaks -- $250 million for a timber company in Montana (the so-called "forest fish" provision: Don't even ask!), $93 million for race horses, an add-on for salmon fisheries in California, the doubling-up of crop insurance and "disaster relief" -- will weigh heavily on taxpayers. The examples could go on and on; perhaps the Orlando Sentinel editorialists put it best by calling it "a rotten bill fit for the compost heap."

STILL, BIG-MONEY agribusiness interests seem to be holding sway with the vast majority of Congress. Too many congressmen are too afraid to cross those powers-that-be in order to stand for principle.

That's why what's needed is an "Oh-Captain-My-Captain" moment. What is needed is for one brave soul in the Republican caucus in either Chamber, one who actually voted for this monstrosity, to stand up at a caucus/conference meeting (figuratively and, if he goes in for showmanship, quite literally on a desk) and say the equivalent of "Oh Jefferson, my Jefferson!"

He can say he was wrong. He can say this bill steals from labor the bread it has earned and gives that tax money directly to millionaires. He can say that he has been pressured by agribusiness interests but is withstanding the pressure. He can say it is time for Republicans to remember that they are supposed to be good fiscal stewards, and time for them to hang together so they won't all hang separately.

He should say that he will vote to uphold the president's veto, not for the president's sake at all, but for the sake of good governance. And then he should turn to another Member who voted for the bill and ask that Member, too, to pledge to uphold the veto -- to stand for principle come hell or high subsidies.

And, one by one, enough Members who voted for the bill the first time should pledge fealty to Captain Principle by sustaining the veto.

The fact is that it is possible for Members to move to the right and the center at the same time -- because, on fiscal issues, conservatives see eye-to-eye with many independents. Ross Perot built a major third-party challenge on the strength of promises of fiscal rectitude. Jesse Ventura was elected governor of Minnesota doing the same.

If not even one-third of one House of Congress can sustain the president's veto of a Manhattan Millionaire's Trail to Nowhere Farm Bill, then it will indeed be true that we must "with mournful tread,/Walk the deck my Captain lies,/Fallen cold and dead."

topics:
John McCain, Business, Environment, Law